St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1887-05-05
GARDEN CITY WOMEN.
They Appear Often in Expensive Garb,
But are Poor-Looking Set on
the Street.
In Addition to Their Lack of Taste, They
Are Said Not to Have Good
Compilations.
Ten silly Little Girls Burn Their Cor
sets and Organize an Anti
Corset League.
The Startling Metamorphosis of a
Cherub TO an Urchin Playing
Nibs for Keeps.
special Correspondence OF the Globe.

Special Correspondence OF the GLOBE.
CHICAGO, April 29.-It is Dad form to
expose the family skeleton, and we AVOID
mentioning its existence outside the family
circle. But since You cannot be among us
a day without discovering it, We don't mind
telling you what we often regretfuliy
whisper among OurSelveS--that Chicago
women are a poOr-looking set on the street.
However we'll they may get themselves up
for evening exhibitions, and, however much
shaded lights may soften the effect OF clash
ing colOrs in their coStuming, in the broad,
mchartable glare of day they are homely
and addressed. The inevitable silver
lining 10 this cloudy fact shows up now and
then in a really pretty, stylish girl. But
saunter up and down State street on
matinee day, or on any day stand for awhile
in the main entrance to Fields. where
wealth and what beauty there is must APP
pear in the constant stream of shoppers
that passes in and out, and twenty five out
of every thirty women you see are doWdleS.
The materials with which they are clothed
NAV De expensive, but wrap of one color,
dress of another and bonnet Of another.
chosen without
REGARD TO HARMONY,
each article. in fact, seeming to have been
picked up and clapped on because it came
handy, are 4 sorry evidence OF taste. AT
matinee last Wednesday afternoon L sat
beside woman who wore fine grey cloth
dress, Il green velvet wrap trimmed with
irrideScent beads, tan-colored straw bon
net trimmed with pink and hellotrope, ana
light brown gloves, and she was only
tod nj
ady. Children. poor things, suffer from
it. While her mother stood talking to some
friends in store the other day, little girl
o. or years was the conscious and UNI
comfortable observed of all observers.
She was covered from chin to
ankle by Il red and brown
striped, jersey flannel cloak, and on
her head was tied an old fashioned shak er,
trimmed with plaid ribbon and cape Of
plaid silk. The little creature looked hid
eOuS, yet more than one woman who passed
her exclaimed, How cuter' Isn't that
sweet?" TO the evident qualification of the
maternal originator of the child's rig. 1t Is
something of relief to find in one of the
leading dry goods establishments an army
of female clerks escaping the cOntagion
during the day in black dresses. The firm
has made new departure, and furnishes
its female employees with uniforms of black
cloth skirts and Jerseys which are kept at
dress suit and air of pomposty by head
walters, when they 90 on duty in the morn
ing, and are removed before leaving at
night. In addition to lack of taste in dress
ing, women here lack the chief feature OF
feminine loneliness -
GOOD CoMPLEXIONS.
They attribute the deficiency to the
winds. which every truthful person who.
has felt himself being blown in several
different directions at the same time, must
allow do rage in Chicago, and perhaps the
cause named is the right one. Suffice it to
say, it is i'll vain that we pay $3.50 for a
couple of spoonsful of Retainer cream.
which we wear by night, and IS cents for
thimbleful of Retainer powder, which we
wear by day. This blight on our beuaty,
like the poor, is always with us. just now
we are suffering, as is doubtless
bight-red noses. A red nose on
man bespeaks him either a man of wealth.
friends unlimited credit. or irresistible
responsiveness; but a red nose on a woman
ellis but one tale-a tale OF tight lacng.
Ii the one fond ambition of woman was to
make themselves uncomfortable, they
would seem to have attained it this spring.
With forty-tWo inch bust betraying the
disabilities of a twenty inch waist. with
tile points of two-inch collar jabbing them
in the chin and forcing them to accept the
existence of everything below it on the
testimony of Others, with a dotted veil
drawn close over their faces, and with tight
sleeves, women at large are material for a
new
BOOK OF MARTYRS
-self-persecuted ones. Some of the martyrs
who furnished material for the other book
would certainly groan, or ask, What is
it," to see the apology for the sign of the
cross which tight sleeves oblge good female
Catholics, Or high-church Episcopalans, to
make. AT mass at fashionable Catholic
church week or two ago | recalled the
free arm movement once employed in this
act of devotion, and it contrasted strongly
with the one now in use. Tight-Sleeved
women can do no more than hold their
tight gIoved hand in front of them and
make the sign by pointing the foretinger at
their forehead, the little finger at their waist
line, and SpaSmodically twitching the
thumb from left to right. An assOci-
alton of women on the South side has de-
clared war on the present-day dress of its
SEX and at All Souls church every Friday
afternoon lectures are delivered setting forth
the horrors of its effects. In blood-curd-
ling tones we are asked if we have ever
seen liver that wore corsets; do we know
what curved, cracked ribs and compressed
lungs look like, and have we the slightest
conception OF the duty we owe to future
generations? Our vitals are pictured in
such an awfully-abused state that we
couldn't feel much guiltier if we
had been selling our grandfather's
mummy. or dining by stealth off a
niceiv-roasted human kid. More than
one girl has been scared into registering a
VOW to reform. to give pOsterity chance
for its life, and ten silly little things have
actually organized themselves into an anti
corset league. AT their first meeting each
girl Invested herself of her corsets, which
were burned with impressive ceremony in
the presence of the assembly, who sat
amid the fumes of the
BURNING COTTON,
solemnly holding their noses and feeling
that Joan OF Arc might have been some
thing of revOlutioniSt in her way, but that
she was not circumstance to them in
theirs. They appeared once in an origin
ally-designed reformed dress-a hideous
one-pece garment worn over trousers and
jersey combination suit without corsets
and buStles: they were such shapeless,
lOppy-lOoking creatures that the public
couldn't conScientiously admire them. and
they have since been content to wear their
uniform only in the privacy of their club
room. while they frame laws and conduct
debates destined to win the public where
their example failed. A young man,
member of a dramatic club, who imperson-
ated IA fashionable young woman OH the
stage the other night, after the entertain
ment came playfully up to a crowd of girls
and declared he had learned why girls al
ways giggle. He said he had often Won